


Arms Tonite

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Attempted Murder, Dirk Strider and Dave's Bro Aren't the Same Person, First Meetings, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Misgendering, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Dirk Strider, Trans Karkat Vantas, Transphobia, unsafe binding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23446519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When assassin Dave Strider was hired to murder the child of one of the most powerful businessmen in the world, he really did not expect it to go this way. Now he was in a much bigger mess than he ever planned to be.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Arms Tonite

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this is like my first attempt to write anything other than a one-shot, I don't really know how well it's gonna turn out but I hope you enjoy it! it's somewhat proofread but, I'm somewhat illiterate lmao  
> anyway, enjoy I guess!

“Strider to the main office.”

Dave sighed. He had gotten back from his last mission just that morning. Figures that they would send him straight back out into the field. Megido and Captor were both out and Makara- actually who knows where Makara was at this point. Dave didn’t even want to know. He reluctantly dragged himself out of his chair and to the main office.

Serket was sitting on her desk- well actually it was Peixes’ desk but as she was out in the field for the next two weeks, Serket had taken over. It wasn’t to anybody’s surprise. She was the self-claimed second in command of this entire operation. The operation being, fully trained assassins hired to murder specific people. Dave wonders what his life would be like if he hadn’t of gotten into this job- probably some DJ. 

“Strider,” she started, a smug grin on her face, it was basically the number one rule of this job to refer to each other by last name while in the workplace. “We have got a fun surprise for you. You won’t believe who just got marked to be assassinated. For a seven-digit number as well!”

Seven-digit? Dave narrowed his eyes behind his shades. Sure, it was a great amount of money, but at what risk? Numbers that high were usually for people with the highest skill and lowest failure rate. Not to say Dave wasn’t skilled, on the tier list he was below Makara and Megido but pretty comfortably on-par with Captor. He supposed it made sense they went to him, although, he usually worked on the less high-class cases and more on taking down multiple people at once, usually in the underground drug-scheme. Still, he was curious as to who he was being sent after.

“Enlighten me, Serket.” he insisted, he saw her eyes light up with menacing delight. That was not reassuring.

“I assume you’ve heard of Vantas Enterprises?” it was sort of impossible to not have. It was the biggest company on this side of the USA. Mostly based in Texas but widespread across all the states. They mostly specialized in the production of cars and various other technologies. Dave happened to own a few appliances from them, the reason being that his older brother, Dirk (not the oldest brother; Bro was an entirely different case), worked in the company. It was no surprise due to his gift with technology. 

Although, it was also no surprise that the company has a large underground following, specifically involved in several drug rings. It has large connections with the mafia and things that Dave really did not want to get too messed up in. Dave looked at Serket curiously- not that she could really tell this of course. 

He studied her for a moment before slowly asking, “What about them?”

Her grin only seemed to widen. “Well, are you aware that the big leader of the company, Mr. Vantas, has a daughter?” Dave was not really aware of this. He wasn’t exactly the type to go searching out that information, he simply nodded anyway.

“Well, our client seems to have a bone to pick with Mr. Vantas himself, therefore he decided a good way to get at him was to go for the throat- or in this case. His daughter, Kaylie.” she seemed to notice the distressed look on Dave’s face at the prospect of murdering a child, “don’t worry, she’s almost nineteen. Still living with good old Daddy though.” from what he’s heard of the man, Dave wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t allowed to leave. He felt himself relaxing slightly. 

The one rule Dave had, under no circumstances would he ever harm a child. Luckily, Peixes very willingly agreed to this condition. He knew it was the same for many others here too. Makara was probably one of the few exceptions. Dave opted to stay away from him.

“When is the job to be done?” he inquired.

“Before the end of the week, but, I recommend you do it tonight. The longer we hesitate the higher the risk of it getting out. You know how some people are. They would do anything to get on Vantas’ good side.” Dave nodded, Serket’s eyes flashed with the same menacing delight. “Are you up for it, Strider?” 

He simply smirked, “Was that a challenge?”

How hard could this be?

  
  


\--

  
  


Rather hard, as it turns out. Not only did the Vantas’ Mansion have insane amounts of security, but it also seemed that nobody actually slept. Seriously, who kept a light on all night?

Dave almost kissed the ground in relief as the last light shut off at just shy of 3:30 am. It was showtime. Serket had shown him where she apparently slept as well as a quick route to get to it.

Breaking in was the difficult part, Dave now only had to locate, murder her and then leave without a trace. Captor, who had luckily gotten back before Dave was set to head off, had been a saving grace in temporarily deactivating all security cameras and sensors. This was going to be a piece of cake. Reaching a room at the end of the hall, Dave smirked to himself, it’s showtime. 

He cautiously opened the door, slowly enough that it didn’t creak. It was dark inside the room but there was light was coming from inside what Dave assumed to be an ensuite bathroom. Closing the door as softly as he opened it, Dave pulled out a small knife. It probably wouldn’t take a lot to overpower and kill her before she could make much of a noise. As he crept closer to the bathroom he heard what sounded like… sobbing? Well, that wasn’t going to be fun.

Pushing open the door, the sight he saw before him both confused and made him feel almost bad for what he was going to have to do. Mr. Vantas’...daughter? Was practically sobbing her heart out as she hacked off large amounts of what Dave assumed to be once long, dark- brown hair. His heart almost squeezed upon noticing the bandages wrapped, bruisingly tight around her chest. That was… surprisingly a sight he wasn’t too unfamiliar with.

A few years ago, he had experienced watching Dirk pass out in the middle of the kitchen due to a lack of oxygen. Dave and Bro had scolded him deeply and Dave almost wanted to cry at the bruising over his chest, of course, he didn’t. That wasn’t the Strider way. Although one good thing that came out of that experience was Dirk finally coming out to him and Bro as transgender and Bro buying him an actual chest binder. Bro let him cry then. He deserved to.

Kaylie had noticed the movement of the door and looked towards Dave. She studied the knife in his hand and it clicked in her brain what was going to happen. Dave was more alarmed when she didn’t scream. She just sighed, more tears dripping down her cheeks.

“Listen, Fuckwad, before you kill me, can you at least do something?” Dave wasn’t expecting that sort of voice to come from her, it was hoarse from crying but it also seemed to be naturally gravelly. 

Dave threw on an amused smirk. “You really aren’t in the place to negotiate with your murder, Kaylie.” she flinched harshly at that, causing Dave’s smirk to fade slightly.

“It’s Karkat, not fucking Kaylie. I’m not a girl,” he hissed out quietly. That answered that question then. “the least you could do is gender me correctly before you fucking assassinate me. It’s hardly negotiating if I’m letting you kill me afterward.” Dave supposes he had a point.

“Alright, Karkat,” Dave tried to ignore the look of surprise and downright thankfulness the other boy gave him for gendering him correctly. Jesus Christ, how much did he have to suffer from this? Dave cursed at himself for feeling bad for the person he was supposed to kill, “What is your final wish, good sir?”

Karkat brought a hand up to his freckled face and wiped away some of his tears with the back of his hand. “Can you hug me? I’ve only been hugged once before. Just until I fall asleep, then you can kill me...please?” Was he serious? Dave questioned in his brain. He’s only been hugged once before? Was his life so sad that his final wish was for someone to show him some common affection?

Dave shrugged nonchalantly, “Sure, bro. That’s chill.” This was a weird situation. Karkat smiled softly at that and walked past Dave, into his room, then proceeded to sit on his bed, looking at Dave expectantly. Dave made his way over and sat on the bed next to Karkat, he was met with an unimpressed expression.

“Do you normally cuddle someone with a knife in your hand, douchemuffin?” Dave then noticed the knife still in his hand, he chuckled softly. “I mean, it really depends, if you’re into that, who am I to judge?” Karkat scowled at him, Dave took that as a signal to put his knife back into his pocket. He proceeded to awkwardly open his arms as an invitation for the other boy to hug him.

Karkat instantly shuffled into the other boy’s arms, wrapping his own arms around Dave’s torso. An assassination mission was not the place to be questioning your sexuality and yet Dave could not help but think about how very not straight he was feeling at that moment. Karkat was cute, his short, freshly cut hair was a mess of curls on his head, it surprisingly suited him pretty well. His face was covered in enough freckles to rival Dave’s own. He had rather bad bags under his eyes. In all honestly, while his face was rather soft, it wasn’t far from being masculine. If Dave wasn’t aware that he was trans, he probably would have assumed he was a cisgender guy who was just on the shorter side.

Dave took this moment to look around the room, it’s walls were covered in cheesy posters from shitty romance movies, he also had a wall-to-wall bookshelf covered in probably hundreds of books. Dave was one hundred percent sure that he hadn’t read any of them, mostly due to the fact that Dave barely read anyway. 

“So, what’s with all the shitty romance stuff?” Karkat let out an offended noise, scowling up at Dave once again.

“They are  _ not _ shitty you uncultured pimple-squeezing heinous shitstench! These movies are all works of art.” he hissed heatedly. Dave blinked before he started laughing.

“ _ What _ did you just call me? Oh my god-” he wheezed. Karkat only glared at him harder.

“Shut the fuck up- stop laughing, it’s not funny!” he semi-yelled indignantly.

“I-I’m sorry Karkat but- what the fuck kind of insult is p-pimple-squeezing heinous shitstench?” Dave wheezed, unable to keep his voice steady from laughing.

“It’s not like I know your actual fucking name.” Karkat huffed.

“Well, it’s definitely not that. Although, that would be an awesome name.” he proceeded to smirk slightly. “Well, I go by Strider in the workplace because we try to be semi-anonymous but since you aren’t exactly going to tell anyone, it’s Dave. Dave Strider.”

Karkat rolled his eyes, “Jesus fuck, even your name is douchey. Those sunglasses make it worse.” Dave gasped dramatically.

“Do  _ not _ insult the shades. These are my babies and I take personal offense to them being insulted.” Karkat found himself grinning at this slightly. It was weird, he was cuddling with his soon to be murderer and yet he was almost happy.

“I hope you take serious offense then, Strider. They’re douchey. Why do you wear them?”

“Oh, are we going into personal things now? How forward you are Mister Vantas. You should at least take me out to dinner first.” Karkat raised an unimpressed eyebrow at that. Dave almost forgot he was supposed to be murdering him. “My eyes are sensitive to light. Plus its sort of a big thing in my family. Eyes are where the most weakness is shown so hide them.” 

Karkat was silent for a few moments before he spoke up again, “Can I see them?”

Dave froze for a moment, what harm could it do? It’s not like he would be able to go around and repeat it afterward. He moved his arms up to his face and slowly removed the sunglasses from his face. Karkat couldn’t help but stare in awe at his piercingly intense red eyes. Dave felt naked, speaking of which. He frowned at noticing Karkat was still in the state of being shirtless with the horrendously tight bandages still wrapped around his chest. Dave could see the bruises.

“Holy fuck, how are your eyes that color?” 

“I’m albino… that kind of just happens.” Karkat nodded, understandingly. He was still taken aback. Dave now had to bring up the other matter. “Karkat…” he started, “you know how dangerous it is to bandage your chest like that right?” the boy froze before nodding.

“Yeah well, I don’t exactly have any other option. My Dad’s the biggest transphobic douche of the century and...if I bought one for myself he would only make it worse for me.” Dave’s heart clenched at how broken the boy’s voice sounded. 

“That’s shitty… I’m sorry dude.” Karkat shot him a confused look.

“Why are you sorry? It’s not like you could do anything about it.” Dave remained silent at that. The least he could do was give him a shirt to wear. He slid off his own jacket and wrapped it around Karkat’s shoulders, the boy looked confused but put his arms in the sleeves anyway. Dave finally wrapped his arms around the boy, pulling him closer. Karkat closed his eyes.

He was going to have to do this, right? It was what he was paid to do. He couldn’t go soft for this one boy. He couldn’t… his entire reputation.

His train of thought was paused at the sound of soft snoring. Karkat was asleep. It was time. He grabbed the knife, trying not to jostle Karkat too much and wake him up, he held it to his neck. 

Dave took a deep breath.

Fuck. 

He couldn’t do it, he had to get him out of here.

Admitting defeat, he put the knife away and just sat there, pitying himself for the good half of an hour before beginning to shake Karkat awake.

His eyes fluttered open, a look of confusion clouding them. “Why the fuck am I still alive?”

“I’m getting you the fuck out of here. Calling me a knight in shining armor or whatever,” he said, grabbing his sunglasses, sliding them back into his face. “I don’t really enjoy seeing you suffering here.”

Karkat’s expression morphed from confusion to pure astonishment. “Are you serious?” 

Dave nodded. “As serious as tax-fraud my dude. To be honest, I probably could have used a better example there but I’m sticking with it.”

“You are the worst assassin I have ever seen. What kind of dumbass proceeds to rescue the person they were about to kill? You do know I could report you to the police right?” despite saying this, Karkat looked like he was buzzing with happiness.

“Are you going to do that?” Dave questioned with a cocky grin.

“No, but I could if I wanted to… but I don’t want to. How the fuck are we supposed to get out of here without being noticed?” Dave’s grin only deepened. “Well I got in didn’t I?” that was true.

Dave hopped off the bed and offered Karkat his hand. “Shall we?”

Karkat could not for the life of him believe he was doing this. Well, it was between staying here and suffering or... Going with the man who tried to kill him in an attempt to be free. He was scared. This was reckless. Yet, somehow he felt as though this was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. 

With that final thought, he rolled his eyes and took Dave’s hand “Whatever you say, Strider.”

  
  


\--

Holding a stranger’s hand as he drags you through your own mansion, somehow not triggering any alarm systems was not how Karkat expected his Thursday night to go. His heart was pumping at top speed with both excitement and dreadful fear. God, what was his dad going to say? What if Dave is just a spy for him? It didn’t really matter if Dave was still planning to kill him, hell, Karkat was going to do it himself anyway, but if he was only being brought to his dad to have his stupid workers beat the shit out of him then he wished that he just ended it all earlier as planned.

He finds himself being pulled out of the downstairs drawing-room window. He tries not to stumble over, fuck, he wasn’t wearing shoes. Actually he was barely wearing anything warm, he was clad in Dave’s jacket and a pair of leggings. Not the kind of thing anyone would normally run around in at night, although, since this was Texas, the weather was a lot more forgiving. By the time they had run down the drive and rounded the corner, Dave slowed down his run to a fast walk, leaving Karkat panting and barely able to catch his breath. He was far from being the most athletic, sure he occasionally lifted, giving him minimal muscles in his arms, he was not much of a runner. This was made somewhat obvious in his own slightly chubby stature. 

Dave was hardly bothered by the run, panting slightly but not even close to Karkat’s level. He found himself chuckling at Karkat’s state, causing him to receive a glare in return.

“You alright there, Kitkat? You look rough.” the glare only deepened.

“Don’t f-fucking call me ‘Kitkat’ shitstain.” he panted out. Dave only chucked softly and dragged him over to his car, he opened up the door for him.

“Your noble chariot awaits.” Karkat climbed into the car and closed the door as Dave went around the other side and flopped into the driver’s seat, sticking the keys in the ignition. “You ready to go?” 

Karkat huffed, “Just drive douchebag.” with that, Dave started the car and they were off.

Yeah, maybe this was an awful idea. Maybe Karkat was only going to suffer more, but at that moment, he couldn’t really ask to be anywhere else. Running away with a stranger was stupid and reckless but it was this or suicide. Even if both ways ended with death for him, at least he got to have an adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> so this was the first chapter, I'm not sure how many there are going to be, I don't really know if I'm planning on continuing this either but, if you guys enjoy it then I will! like I said this is my first time ever really attempting anything other than an oneshot so,,, don't bully me if it's bad lmao. let me know if you want me to continue!


End file.
